Nothing Left
by dysprositos
Summary: When your emotions are your greatest enemy, the battle against them may not be one you wish to win. In fact, doing so may prove impossible. Sort-of prequel to "Null Hypothesis."


Warnings: language, attempted suicide.

Thanks to irite, for being an awesome beta and not getting annoyed when I send out 67 things a week.

I should probably mention that this completely ignores both of the Hulk movies.

I do not own the Avengers.

* * *

When your emotions are your greatest enemy, the battle against them may not be one you wish to win.

In fact, doing so may prove impossible.

Dr. Bruce Banner knew that his "condition" was aggravated by strong feelings. For the safety and well-being of the people around him, then, he knew he had to avoid those strong feelings like the plague. After all, it was his own idiocy, his own reckless disregard for rules and procedures, that had caused this mess. He'd take responsibility. He'd do what he could to make sure he wasn't any more of a monster than he had to be. And so he set out (subconsciously at first, consciously later) to conquer his emotions, to beat them down, to expel them from his body like the infection they had become.

At first, it seemed an easy enough task. "Don't get angry." He was reasonably even-keeled. How hard could it be, really, to avoid the things that pissed him off?

Harder than he had thought, as it turned out. The first time he met his own gaze in the bathroom mirror, rage—at himself, at his stupid fucking mistake—had exploded within him with a speed and ferocity that was matched only by that of the transformation that tore through his body.

When he regained consciousness, he was naked, lying in the rubble of his apartment complex, sirens shrieking in the distance.

Subsequently, he avoided mirrors. And he never, ever thought about his past. Problem solved, right?

Not quite. After rage, he had to target irritation and anxiety. He found it was rather harder to sidestep those things that annoyed him. He started by hiding himself in the third world. Far from the life he had once known, far from those who would see him killed, and shrouded in anonymity, his stress levels lowered. By working a menial job he didn't care about (that, incidentally, had nothing to do with gamma rays) he was able to further avoid taxing his sympathetic nervous system.

But the problem lingered.

So, slowly and methodically, he eliminated from his life all of the things that triggered any of his emotions, strong or otherwise. When it eventually ended up that he spent all his time alone, to avoid all of the reactions that came from interacting with other people, well, that was all right. Loneliness was a small burden to bear, compared with the weight of lives taken and blood spilled on his hands. And when he gave up all the things he loved, all the things he cared about, because feeling passion was too close to feeling rage, that was okay, too. Being hollow was better than being a monster.

After all of his hard work, Bruce thought that there should have been nothing left inside him. It was what he had been striving for. The goal, the purpose, the point. It was what he wanted, more than anything.

But it didn't work out that way. Because they kept coming back, those emotions, rising from their graves like fetid, lumbering zombies. Always unexpected, they took him by surprise, staying just long enough to trigger the transformation that ripped apart his body and mind. And leaving him, just as abruptly, to become once again empty, apathetic, indifferent.

He realized, one morning, unearthing himself from the remains of what had once been a village, that this was a battle that he could not win. He could only wage it endlessly. There would be no victory, no triumph, and most importantly, there would be no escaping the monster he had tried so hard to slay. The emotions he had cast away would never truly be gone, because something could always revive them. And so, as the two were inextricably tied together, the monster would always remain as well.

He'd been so foolish to think otherwise. It was all so clear now.

Bruce slowly made his way back to his hovel, surprised to see that it was still standing. The inside, though, had been completely destroyed. So he dug around through the splintered wood, through the shards and pieces of his belongings, until he found what he was looking for.

With unfeeling fingers, he caressed the grip of the pistol he'd gotten three weeks into his life in the third world. For self-defense. In a way, it was rather ironic.

He may have once felt fear, apprehension...maybe even regret. But not now. His emotions were dormant. For the moment, anyway. But like a sleeping snake, he knew they could lash out suddenly, unpredictably. Containment wasn't an option. He had tried, and he had failed.

Bruce knew he couldn't spend the rest of his life doing damage control, falling prey to the emotions he was, despite his best efforts, too weak and pathetic to control. He wouldn't live like that. Like this.

The barrel of the gun was cold in his mouth, and it tasted like grease and blood on his tongue.

He did not hesitate, not even for a moment, to pull the trigger.

His hovel did not survive the Hulk's second rampage.


End file.
